Win 7 and Win 8 Upgrade Advisors fail

I am running XP SP3 on a system and am planning to upgrade because of the imminent loss of MS support.

I have dowloaded the Win8 Upgrade Advisor. It starts to inspect my system, telling me that it will take a few minutes, but it has taken all night and is still inspecting the system.

So I've just tried the Win 7 Upgrade Advisor. It has been running now for 30 mins, with no results.

My system appears to tick the boxes - Intel Core Duo E8400 3GHz, 3.2GB RAM - but I don't wish to buy and run a Win8 Upgrade-from-XP OS and find that it stalls for the same reason the Upgrade Assistants are stalling.

Can anyone help please?

Maybe I should cut my losses, stop wasting time on these useless Upgrade Assistants, and buy a full version of Win 8, and do a clean install - presumably there is a choice to formatting the HD in such a scenario.

Your system will be fine with Windows 7 or 8. I would buy an SSD and Win7 OEM, put the SSD in place of the existing and do a fresh install. When it's done you can shut down and connect the old disk to a second port and go from there.

cheers, Paul

p.s. It's always worth doing a full image backup prior to an upgrade, just in case you want to go back to the old for some reason.

If I do get a SSD I guess I can remove the old floppy drive, get a 2.5 - 3.5 adapter and put the drive there. The system is all SATA (Gigabyte GA-P31-ES3G).

I assume that Win 7 (or 8?) would, on installation, label the new SSD as C: drive, but what happens when I re-attach the current drive? Does Win 7/8 automatically re-letter the current drives/partitions?

I'll leave the tech questions to the more experienced, but to take a step back, what did chkdsk in read-only mode give for bad sectors and why did you run chkdsk /f ?

If chkdsk listed any bad sectors, back up your personal files and run the command chkdsk /r then retry either upgrade advisor/assistant.

chkdsk /r as well as having the attributes of /f will move what data it can from any bad sectors it finds, but data can be lost - hence, best to back up personal files before running this command when there are known bad sectors.

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As long as you have your new SSD on the lowest SATA port number and no other disk connected, Windows will set the disk as C: and all will be well. When you re-connect your old disk to a higher SATA port, Windows will see and boot from the SSD and then treat the "old" disk as a normal disk, probably E: - assuming you have a CD.

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Many thanks for all the useful replies.
Sudo15 ("what did chkdsk in read-only mode give for bad sectors and why did you run chkdsk /f ?") - I was busy doing something else, spotted that chkdsk had completed and just quit without noting the results - there was some minor adjustment it made I think. I think it prompted me to run chkdsk /f so I just did that.

It's one single partitioned drive, and I keep all data on the E: partition, and back it up to an external USB drive.

May I ask why you recommend backing up an XP-based image? That will be a security risk very soon won't it? Surely it would be foolish to reinstate the image if something goes wrong? The whole point of this exercise is to expunge XP - with huge reluctance and regret. (Sometimes I think I'll just keep going with it, make sure I back up all data frequently on an external drive, and if something nasty does happen, then think about alternatives, like a new SSD with Win8)

May I ask why you recommend backing up an XP-based image? That will be a security risk very soon won't it? Surely it would be foolish to reinstate the image if something goes wrong?

The image based backup gets your computer back to a know working state. It's a safety net of sorts, so that you're not left with nothing.
The chances of a failed Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 install are slim but not impossible.

Personally, if it were me, I'd clean install XP, update it and get all it's current drivers, then try the upgrade advisors again prior to proceeding.
I would also, probably the very first thing I'd do, is visit your computer manufacturer's web site and check to see if they offer W7/8/8.1 drivers for you make and model.
If they do, then you can be relatively certain the OS upgrade will work out just fine regarding your hardware.

Last edited by CLiNT; 2014-03-05 at 06:02.

DRIVE IMAGINGInvest a little time and energy in a well thought out BACKUP regimen and you will have minimal down time, and headache.

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More great advice guys. Thanks. Meanwhile I've discovered Belarc's terrific system analysis programme. If that can analyse my system so comprehensively why the heck can't MS Upgrade Assistant, I ask myself.

Belarc Advisor just does an audit of your system and checks to see if you have all security updates whereas the upgrade advisor is comparing your system.

As neither upgrade advisor is able to complete, then it may be that you wouldn't be able to upgrade, so going to either the computer or driver manufacturer support sites and checking if they have drivers for either Win 7, 8/8.1 would be the next best option or just contact the computer vendor for advice as to its compatibility.

Another reason why the advisors could fail could be if there are bad sectors on the HDD so it could get hung up on those which is why I've suggested running chkdsk which will show either 0 KB in bad sectors or n KB in bad sectors.